Abstract:

Scarcity of the number of female managers in the education system has been a remarkable issue in Turkey, where the position of women and gender equality in society is frequently argued today.

Although there is an increase in the number of working women, same is not been stated for the number of women administrators (Ucan, 2012). Due to especially the patriarchal structure of our society, usually men have the executive administrative positions and our value of judgement leads us to think that making decisions is capability of men as well as administration is a job for them. Therefore women's organizational positions in which they have to be efficient to make decisions is not very welcome in our society (Sefer, 2006) . It is known that the negative point of view towards women of some administrative staff in charge still effects society. This group of people have their basis on traditional patterns which place women in the cycle of house, motherhood and being a housewife, of course behind their men.

Looking at various sectors each and every day more women take middle and high level executive positions. Unfortunately the same positive attitude can not be seen in the educational administration (Celikten, 2004). Having mostly female primary teachers in the very first years of school life may seem as a reason for relating school, the power, the authority and knowledge that school represents with women. Still most of our school principals, national educational administrators of cities and Minister of Education usually consist of men. This clearly shows who holds the power in the field of education. While women head for teaching, because it is perceived close to non-paid family jobs of motherhood and caretaker, it is men who have the authority of making decision and inspection of life in schools and education.

Related to sex stereotyping imposed upon women by school administration and the factors which prevent women from being managers, much research has been carried out recently.

Our study aimed to investigate the attitudes of teachers and administrators towards women administrators. The population of the research consisted of the teachers and administrators at public schools in Adana’s districts (Seyhan, Çukurova, Yüreğir and Sarıçam) province where women held an administrative position in 2015-2016 academic year. The Attitudes Towards Women As Managers Scale (ATWOM) were used to collect data and the sample consisted of 365 teachers and administrators. In the sample age mean was found 36.75 ± 7.64 years and most of the participants were women (75.3%).

As a results of the data analysis, men and women personals’ attitudes to women managers, have been significant differences in two sub dimensions, which are Task Role Behaviors and Relational Role Behaviors, according to t-test. Preschool personals’ attitudes have been significant differences than high school and elementary school personals’ attitudes in all sub dimensions. These results and others have been argued with literature.

Keywords:

Women, administrators, attitudes, ATWOM.